"No."

"Why not?"

"You know how old he is! How old she is!"

"So? Must I remind you how old you are? In relation to me?"

"No."

"Well then, get over it."

"No."

"Severus."

"Hermione."

"No! You can't use the name thing on me once I use it on you! Dungeon rule!" Hermione said triumphantly, sticking her tongue out. "He's examining her tomorrow night whether you like it or not."

"I will not let a hormonal twenty-something year old into the same room as our more hormonal thirteen year old. Especially when one of them is in shorts and a tanktop!" Severus said in his cool, steely voice. You know the one. That voice that makes even the seventh year Slytherins wet their pants in fear. Of course, said voice has absolutely no effect on Hermione.

"May I take this oppurtunity to remind you that you're nearly twenty three years older than myself?" Hermione asked, with a smirk on her face. She knew she had her husband in the palm of her hand. He knew it, too, but didn't want to admit defeat. Besides, she thought that it was rather cute, her daughter having a crush on her Ear. Besides, it was deadly funny.

"No, you may not," Severus told her, finally stopping his frantic pace around the room and dropping onto their sofa next to her. "It's just weird."

"What is?" Hermione asked, absently. She was marking fourth year Arithmancy papers.

"Well, I never completely knew that Harry was my son until he was fifteen. After that, it was like I was just a spectator in his life until you came up with that curse to use against Voldemort. By then, he and Ginny were engaged. Now, we're starting at the beginning with Eliza. It's just weird, that's all."

"You should be used to it, teaching here and all," she told him, circling a particularly large chart that was completely wrong. "You experience teenage hormones everyday."

"But they aren't my daughter."

"Okay, good point, but you're still over-reacting about the whole Ear thing." Hermione put down the papers and turned to face her husband. "You realize that this is the first, uninterrupted moment of silence we've had in nearly six weeks?"

"Yes."

"And we're wasting it arguing about a subject over which you've got no control. If you want your daughter to get better quickly and to be healthy-looking in time for Easter, you'll give in, right?" she asked, kissing from his ear to the corner of his mouth.

Severus groaned and pulled his wife into his lap and kissed her firmly. When they pulled apart for breath, he told her, "I'll give in. But, I fully expect to be present." Hermione quirked a smile and then dragged Severus off to their room.


While Severus and Hermione were having their little conversation down the hall and three doors down, Eliza was in her room, scratching out stuff in her journal. Previously, it had all been filled with plans to rope off the prefects' bathroom (Harry let her in on where it was) and flood it, plans to poison Slytherin, and many more crazy pranks. Hey, she even had an idea to leave dead tuna outside of McGonagall's door, but she didn't think that would fly. Now, she was scrawling in it about Scotty, her "devilishy handsome" Ear. According to her, of course. She looked up from her journal when she heard the heavy door creak open. "Hey Jack, if you're trying to sneak in, you need to cast a silencing charm on the damn door," she said, getting up and pulling open the door.

Of course, Harry would pick that time to be walking into her room. "Why, exactly, would Jack be sneaking into your room? Nevermind, I don't want to know."

"Right," Eliza said, going back to her bed and finishing writing about her day, Scotty, homework, Scotty, the triplets, Scotty, her parents, and, her favourite subject, Scotty!! "How come you're still here? I thought you guys had to okay to move back to your place."

"We do, from Dumbledore. Poppy Pomfrey won't let Ginny go anywhere since she's to deliver around Easter."

"But, I thought you were going to be with us on Easter?" Eliza asked, looking up from her very detailed description of Scotty. "How can you be, if you're here?"

"That's what I was coming to discuss with Dad and Hermione. They aren't in their offices, studies, and the triplets are snoozing away soundly. Where are they?" Eliza turned bright red and bit her lip. She quickly went back to her journal. Harry caught her drift and quickly flushed. "Uh..right. Well, tell them I was here." He made a fast exit.

"Well, that was funny," Jack said, whipping off the Invisibility Cloak. Eliza's eyes widened. "What? I thought you heard me come in."

"No."

"Oh. Well. Is your Ear that cute?" he asked, grinning.

"JACK!" she yelled, jumping back and quickly putting a few charms on her journal. "Why did you read that? Those are my private thoughts!" Eliza glared daggers at him and stormed out the room.

"What?" he asked to no-one in particular. "Marty just wanted to know if he had competetion," he muttered, throwing the cloak back on and slinking out the dungeons. "Last time I do anything like that," he told himself over and over again.


The next afternoon, as Eliza was changing out of her school robes and wondering what to wear, she walked into her mother's study in a sports bra and shorts, holding up two shirts. "Mum, which one would you wear?"

"Well, when I was your age, the left one was stylish. But, if you walk around wearing that, your father would have to castrate all the males in Hogwarts going through puberty."

"MUM!" Eliza shrieked, covering her ears. "EW!"

"Sorry. But for your father's peace of mind, wear the right one." Eliza nodded and pulled on the sleeveless shirt before banishing then second one back to her wardrobe. "Why the sudden interest in shirts?" Hermione asked, closing some of her books.

"I don't know. I guess I just want to look nice. Maybe looking nice will make Scotty think I'm doing better."

"I highly doubt that. He's trained and extremely knowledgable in the world of eating disorders."

"Well, damn."

"Eliza, Danvy's here," Severus said from behind her. He was holding the left shirt. "And, were you trying to banish this to your room?" Eliza nodded. "You need practice. I found it on the sofa in the living room."

"...oh. Sorry." Eliza turned red and looked at Scotty. "So, where are we talking today?"

"Actually, little miss," he said, using the nickname he decided on for her, "I'm going to give you a physical examination. Just so I can determine where we are. We can do it in here, if you would lay back on that sofa, over there."

Eliza raised an internal eyebrow and followed his suggestion, noting her father's disapproving glare. She grabbed a pillow and propped it against the arm of the sofa, then laid down. Her mind cackled wickedly and started to process all sorts of nasty thoughts. Eliza scrunched up her eyes and tried to ignore them.

Scotty rolled his eyes when he felt the glares coming from Severus. After the first session, Hermione had warned him that Severus was a bit overprotective of Eliza. Of course, Scotty knew this already, but letting Hermione tell him just reiterated the point. "How do you feel, Eliza?" he asked, taking out a few magical pictures along with a camera. "If you don't mind, I'm going to take a few pictures as we go along. Just so I can make some comparisons later."

"Alright," she told him. "I feel fine. Eating lunch and dinner is a little strange. And at lunch I'm not really hungry."

"Have you been exercising like we discussed last time?" Scotty asked, helping her to sit up and taking pictures of her shoulders and collarbone. "If you don't exercise, all this eating will do nothing but make you pudgy."

"I've got a high metabolism," Eliza defended. Why was it like she was always defending herself to him?

"Not anymore, little miss. Not eating three whole, regular meals a day screwed that over. Now you've got a slower one. You've got to exericise unless you want to be pudgy."

"Quidditch count?"

"If you're a beater or a chaser. Your brother told me he goes running in the morning and he said he'd be glad to take you with him while he's here," Scotty told her. "Anything else you want to talk about? I'm done and I'm glad to say that you're progessing much farther than I thought."

"What does that mean?" Severus asked.

"Well, Madam Pomfrey embellished what Eliza's physical condition was. So, I took some snapshots of her legs, arms, and face while she was in the hospital wing. Based on what I remember, she is gaining back her weight quite nicely." Scotty turned to Eliza and said, "Guess what."

"What?"

"You're officially heavy enough to go back to class, provided you tell me something."

"Hm?"

"Who taught you to do a Glamourie powerful enough to hide your appearance so well? Last time I checked, Flitwick wasn't teaching that in second year Charms."

"Er...Harry did," Eliza said. "I asked him how to cover up a pimple. And he said that he always used Glamourie after Hogwarts to walk around and hide his scar."

"I'm going to go choke my son now," Snape said, walking out the room.

"He's not really going to harm Harry, is he?" Scotty asked.

"No. But there will be some major hexing if Severus fnds him in twenty minutes."

"Right. Well, see you in three days, little miss."

"Bye Scotty."